Instead, you can take a peek at these 6 quick fire insider secrets to email marketing. You’ll immediately be able to improve your campaigns, or begin a brand new campaign without having to struggle or stumble.

Quick Fire Insider Secrets to Email Marketing

1. Personality is better than a sales pitch: We all deal with sales pitches all day long. The commercials we see and hear, the advertisements we read, the pushy salespeople at stores we visit and of course the emails we receive. It’s hard to differentiate yourself from the crowd when all you’re doing is offering a sales pitch. Instead, inject some honest personality into your email campaigns. Your list members will be more engaged, you’ll build up more trust with them and you’ll stand out from the pack.

2. Too much of a good thing is bad: This is coming from a person who normally doesn’t agree with this statement. If we’re talking too much of a good thing, like pizza, or Italian sandwiches, then I don’t think that’s possible. But if we’re talking about the frequency of your email newsletters and communications, then it certainly is.

I don’t care if I’m the founder of the company in question, if I’m receiving an email once a day and I thought I was going to be getting a once per week newsletter, I’m deleting your email, skimming past it or unsubscribing. Set up expectations for your email frequency and don’t push the boundary towards excessive communication.

3. 20% of emails don’t get delivered: I’m not talking about bounces here, I’m talking about 20% of emails that you thought were delivered. It’s a startling number, and it speaks to the importance of not making any assumptions about the success of your campaign. Always find concrete evidence to the effectiveness of your campaigns and always work on improving your list quality. Not blindly trusting the stats you receive or hear about is one of the huge insider secrets to email marketing that you should know.

4. 94% of email is spam: Not like any of us needed a statistic to be reminded of this fact, but we all are inundated with spam messages in our inbox. That means that if you want your emails to be read by your list members you really have to work hard on following established best practices. That means short, concise and accurate subject lines, displayed “from” information, qualified, permission based list members and more.

5. Cheap email marketing exists: Yes, there is such a thing as cheap email marketing and it’s one of the best insider secrets to email marketing that you can be given. In fact, many of the best email marketing providers are extremely affordable for any sized business or operation. Even better, they all allow for free trials so you can make the final call based on experience. For example, you can sign up for an iContact free trial with plans starting at $9.95 per month, a Constant Contact free trial with plans starting at $15 per month, a Stream Send free trial with plans starting at $20 per month or an AWeber free trial with plans starting at $19 per month.

6. You’re not done with tests when you’re finished with college: But don’t worry, these tests are certainly a good thing. You should be segmenting your list and sending out emails with slight variations. Compare the results and track which variables perform better so that you can optimize your campaigns to the best of your ability. One-size-fits-all email newsletters and campaigns simply don’t cut it anymore. You’ll be missing out on a wealth of valuable data. Start segmenting, testing and optimizing immediately.

If you didn’t know… now you do. Use these insider secrets to email marketing wisely.

More important than that is understanding the answer to the question “what is email marketing?” in the real world. We all receive plenty of email marketing messages each and every day, most of them we lump into the SPAM category. They are wastes of time and space, they slow down and infect our computers, they try to sell us enhancement creams or steal our bank account information and of course they give the rest of us a bad name.

Therefore email marketing in the real world has fast taken on the definition of SPAM.  Again from Wikipedia, SPAM is, “The abuse of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately.”

In other words, email marketing for consumers is fast becoming aligned with fraudulent garbage. For sketchy, illicit or downright illegal business operations, email marketing has taken on the definition of the cheapest way to exploit loads of money from the unsuspecting public at large by poking and prodding repeatedly ad nauseam until somebody purposely or inadvertently caves in.

Now, what should email marketing be? I.M.P.O.R.T.A.N.T.

Now that we know what email marketing really is, by the literal definition and by the interpretations of both consumers and spammers, we should take a look at what email marketing should be. Email marketing should be I.M.P.O.R.T.A.N.T.

• Insightful
• Marketing
• (that’s)
• Personalized
• Optimized
• Relevant
• Targeted
• And
• Never
• Tired

Let’s break this down piece by piece so we have as clear a definition as we can. Email marketing should be insightful marketing. In other words, we should be using all of our judgment, knowledge, expertise and experience to deliver quality, handcrafted messages that not only will produce results, but also speak to the desires of our audience.

Email marketing should be personalized. First, that means building a permission based list of people who really want to hear from you. From there, it means using your name and showing pictures of yourself so your audience knows who you are. It means segmenting your list so that different people receive messages containing what they are most interested in, rather than a generic message of no real value.

Email marketing should be optimized. You should be testing every aspect of your email campaigns to see what works the best. Try different subject lines, content, layouts, color schemes, delivery times and more.

Email marketing should be relevant and targeted. Once again, segment your list into groups and learn what your audience is really interested in. Make your messages timely and full of valuable information that people can really use. Don’t just send what you feel like talking about; send what people want to hear.

Finally, email marketing should never be tired. This means that you shouldn’t keep sending out the same retread emails over and over again and you shouldn’t keep using that same template you had from your first email campaign in 2002.

Refresh your campaigns…bring in guests from other websites or companies to write on special topics…change your layouts so that they are more visually appealing and convert better in the process…think of new, fresh ideas for every email and always be trying new things… stay ahead of the curve and integrate new technology, services and methods instead of playing catch-up down the road.

So how can I answer the question, “what is email marketing”? How about, I.M.P.O.R.T.A.N.T.

4 Myths About Email Campaign Management

It’s time consuming – A lot of people shy away from getting started with email campaigns because they think it’s going to eat up all of their time. Not only is this not true, but with all of the tools and time saving services available today you can run your campaign without taking up much time at all. From templates to writing services to automatic email tracking services and more, email campaign management is quicker and easier now than it’s ever been before.

It costs a lot of money – Obviously keeping your budget under control has to be a top priority for any company. But email campaigns don’t have to break the bank. Actually, email campaigns have the lowest cost per customer acquisition or new sale out of any communication or outreach program, including direct mail, telemarketing, mass advertising and more. Comprehensive plans from industry leaders start at amazingly low prices, including $10 per month at iContact and $15 per month at Constant Contact.

It’s confusing – There are all of these rumors circulating that email campaign management is some kind of rocket science that is extremely complex and confusing. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. All you need to know are 6 important email marketing statistics that can help you gain a complete understanding of how effective your campaigns are and how you might be able to improve them.

It’s pointless – “I’m just going to end up as SPAM anyway, so what’s the point?” Oh, how it pains me when people say something like this! You can easily stay out of those pesky SPAM filters if you just follow some best practices of permission based email marketing. You’ll see that far more people will receive your emails than will look at a postcard you send them in the mail, listen to your radio commercial or pick up that dinnertime phone call.

These myths are just more obstacles to overcome towards running successful email campaigns. The truth about email campaign management is that it’s simple, quick and cheap and it will pay major dividends for your company.

Sheesh! That’s a lot of evil forces trying to hold you back. Even Batman only has two, maybe three, to deal with per movie. The good news is, it’s not too late to throw on your own cape and become a do it yourself email marketing hero!

Step 1 – Create your identity – Any good superhero needs to have an identity. What’s the image your company is trying to project? Why are you “one of the good guys”? How can you help those honest citizens out there be safe from what troubles them? Craft your identity and project a consistent image with your email campaigns about who you are and what you do.

Step 2 – Pick a fight – Whether you realize it or not, your company is always fighting against something and you have to figure out what that is. You might be fighting against high prices for your customers. You might be fighting against customer inconvenience, against poor customer service or against low quality products. You might be directly fighting against another competitor to win the hearts, minds (and dollars) of those you’re communicating with. Figure out what you’re fighting against and you’ll be able to more clearly construct your messages.

Step 3 – Make a difference – Great, you have an identity and you know what you’re fighting against. But it’s all a bunch of empty promises until you live up to your ideals and make a difference out there! You have to find list members by providing something of value to them to get them to signup. You have to convert those leads into customers by effectively creating clear and compelling calls to action and selling points. In other words, find the people that need to be saved from whatever you’re fighting against and convince them that you’re the one to do the saving!

Step 4 – Get some good PR – If you really want to be it a do it yourself email marketing hero you have to get some good PR, just like all superheroes enjoy. A superhero without good PR is just a crazy guy in a mask running around your city. How do you get good PR while sending out email campaigns? It’s easy, you get customer success stories and testimonials that you can share that serve as your front page headline that you are indeed a hero and not some costumed lunatic.

Step 5 – Never get complacent – It’s happened to every superhero… just when they are on top of the world they get complacent and stop caring/trying/wanting to help. And then that’s when somebody needs them the most! To be a do it yourself email marketing hero you have to always strive to stay ahead.

That means tracking your campaigns, comparing their successes and failures and making improvements. That means always finding new leads and list members that you can work on converting. That means consistently providing something of real value to your list members to make it worthwhile for them to be receiving your messages.

Guess what the best part about this whole plan is? You hardly need to spend any money to put it into action, and it won’t take up every second of your workday. Find a cheap email service provider, buy yourself a mask and a cape (completely optional) and get to work following this 5 step plan to becoming a do it yourself email marketing hero!

6 Important Email Marketing Statistics

1. Open Rate – The open rate is the number of people who opened up your email. This statistic is easily jumbled up. To begin with, the way preview panes are viewed as opens or not isn’t consistent. Also important is that open rates are based off tiny 1×1 pixel images embedded into your messages. Anybody on your list who has images turned off on their email therefore does not get counted as an open. It’s useful as a comparison between your campaigns, but not as an end-all-be-all statistic.

2. Click Through Rate - The click through rate, or CTR, may be the most valuable of all of the email marketing statistics. Your company sends out email campaigns for a reason, usually to get somebody to visit your website and then usually take some further action. The CTR for an email tells you how many people clicked through on any of your links. You can compare the effectiveness of different calls to action within the same message or in separate campaigns and you can see how many people liked your email enough to take the next step.

3. Bounces – The dreaded bounce category. A bounce is when an email you send out never reaches its final destination. You may have an incorrect email address, and in some instances some mailboxes may be full or temporarily blocked for various reasons. You can use the bounce rate to judge how strong the quality of your list is. The lower your bounce rate is, the stronger the list is. Remember, quality counts more than quantity when list building.

4. Conversion Rate - The conversion rate takes the idea of the CTR one step forward. Your conversion rate is the actual percentage of people who received the email and completed the full action you wanted them to take. More than just clicking on a link, they made a purchase or they signed up for something or took any kind of quantifiable action that you requested for. You may have to compute this one on your own if your sales and email systems aren’t integrated. You can place referral tracking IDS within your email links so that when somebody makes a sale after reading an email, you know where it came from.

5. Forwards - The forward statistic is a useful tool to see how many of your list members passed on your message to somebody else. If you see a lot of forwards, you are providing useful and informative content that people enjoy enough to share with one of their own acquaintances. Some industries won’t ever see a lot of forwards, especially with business to business email marketing. Messages from other industries though may lend themselves quite well to being passed along.

6. Deliverability­­ – Deliverability is a statistic usually looked at not on the scale of an individual company but as an overall trend in terms of different businesses, industries and email service providers. It’s one of the email marketing statistics that can be used to help benchmark the effectiveness and overall movement of this communication medium from industry to industry and provider to provider.

These 6 important email marketing statistics should help give you a much more lucid understanding of the success of your email campaigns.

The great news is that the majority of the best email marketing software providers offer free trials and demos that can help you see firsthand their strengths and their potential. This goes a long way towards helping people understand what they’re getting into.

Companies such as MailChimp, Bronto and Listrak are just a few of the popular choices and all offer flexible and powerful programs. It doesn’t come close to stopping there though, here’s a list with about 100 different email service providers. In the future, I’ll plan on reviewing many of these different providers as well as comparing their services. In the mean time, here are two of my personal favorites.

iContact Web Based Email Marketing Software

iContact is probably the most feature rich, affordably priced email service provider around. They have plans starting at just $9.95 a month, and considering what you get for that price tag, the value is extraordinary. iContact has over 300 templates that you can choose between and the service includes survey tools and blogging and RSS capabilities as well.

You’ll be able to archive your newsletters on the web, and make use of their autoresponder tools to build your company’ list. They have a strong reputation and great deliverability rates, and offer complete list management and tracking services.

Sign up for an iContact free trial here

Constant Contact Web Based Email Marketing Software

Constant Contact has plans starting at $15 per month, scaling up depending on the size of your list. You have a powerful survey tool at your disposal, although you will have to pay an additional monthly fee to use it after a free trial. One of the best things about the Constant Contact web based email marketing software is how easy the interface is to use and get accustomed it.

You’ll have hundreds of templates to choose between, broken down into easy to find categories. You’ll also have a comprehensive tracking system and full list management and segmentation abilities.

Sign up for a Constant Contact free trial here

This was by no means meant to be a comprehensive or complete guide on the best email service providers. It was meant to whet your appetite a bit and get you ready to dive in and try one of these companies out for yourself. The only way to really make a decision that you’re happy with is to learn by doing. Plus, with a free trial, it’s hard to go wrong.

If you’re new to the world of email communications and online marketing, consider one of these web based email marketing software companies to get you and your company started in the right direction.

Reasons to Segment Your List

1. Compare strategy success – If you breakdown your list into targeted email marketing groups, you’ll be able to try out different strategies and compare the success of one another. Divide your group randomly into three smaller sections. Send out different versions of the same newsletter to each group, featuring perhaps different calls to action or different designs. Keep track of the click through and conversion rates and apply the principles of the email that worked the best from now on.

2. Customize your content – The purpose behind email target marketing is that you want to be able to provide the most personalized and customized message that you can to each member on your list. Somebody on California probably doesn’t care that your store in Pennsylvania is having a blowout sale this weekend. An individual household member probably won’t care that you’re offering 25% on all weekly fulfillment orders that exceed $2,000. The name of the game is sending out your messages to people who will be receptive to them.

3. Set upfront guidelines to keep list members happy - One of the most important takeaways for this week’s email marketing tip should be this: your email list members will be happier and more satisfied if you set upfront guidelines for the content they will be receiving. Give new signups the option to select the categories of messages they want to receive, whether its promotions, new products, newsletters or anything else. List members who can select the information they are going to receive will naturally respond better to those messages. Plus, they did the hard work of segmenting your list for you!

Ways to Segment Your List

• Geographic location
• Age
• Household/business
• Type of information requested
• Previous response history
• Prospects/previous customers
• Purchasing history
• Any variable that will help you deliver more specialized and targeted email marketing messages to your list members

If you get started putting this email marketing tip to work now, your results will begin to improve immediately. A segmented list that allows you to achieve email target marketing will be vastly more successful than a generic, one size fits all list.

Top 7 reasons why you need email marketing companies

1. Deliverability: Reputable email marketing programs are going to have relationships with ISPs that ensure that the messages they send get delivered. Manually sending out emails leaves the door open to get unfairly blacklisted or blocked, or seeing long delays before your messages reach their intended audience.

2. Tracking: Email marketing companies provide detailed tracking services that allow you to follow the results of your campaigns. Without tracking the success of your emails, you’ll never know if what you’re doing is paying off and you’ll never understand how to improve.

3. Templates: An email marketing template will enable you to send out a professionally designed and visually appealing email. The best email services have hundreds of potential themes and options to choose between, in addition to allowing for customization of existing templates.

4. Autoresponders: Autoresponders allow you to signup new prospects and leads from your website. This lets you grow a permission based email marketing list of qualified prospects and interested parties.

5. List Management: Email marketing companies are going to handle all of the hard work of list management. This means allowing for and processing unsubscribe requests, segmenting your list into different groups based on a variety of factors and so on.

6. Bulk email service: Bulk email service is going to let you send out hundreds or even thousands of emails instantly. You can scale up your program to allow for a maximum quantity of emails. There is no limit to how many people you can have in your list or how many emails you can send to them.

7. Time saving: Some of the above services could not be accomplished without email marketing programs, while some could be accomplished on your own if you had hours upon hours to do nothing else except handle your email marketing campaign every week. Using a reputable service will save you loads of time and frustration.

Recommended Email Marketing Companies

There are lots of choices to think about when you’re looking at email marketing companies. Here are two of my favorites that I highly recommend for nearly any purpose. These email services are highly effective and flexible, and are extremely cheap to use and get started with.

iContact Try it FREE for 15 Days
– 15 day free trial, over 300 templates, detailed statistics and tracking, surveys, industry leading deliverability

Constant Contact Try it FREE for 60 Days
– 60 day free trial, over 300 templates, surveys, comprehensive customer support

1. Make sure you can track – What I mean by that is that there are some email marketing systems that do not come with accurate tracking tools. Of course, if you’re still manually sending out your emails via Microsoft Outlook then you’re stuck relying on read receipts. Additionally, if you’re still using Outlook than trust me, that’s the least of your problems, so good luck with all of that.

Sign up with one of the reputable email marketing companies that provide a full range of tracking and statistics to get started.

2. Learn which stats to rely on – One of the biggest problems that people have with email marketing tracking is that they don’t know what to make of the statistics. The most commonly used statistic is the ubiquitous open rate. However, an email campaign’s open rate can be extremely misleading.

An open rate is reliant upon a tiny image that’s automatically inserted into all of your emails. If a recipient has images turned off for their emails – and an increasingly large number of people do – than they could open the email 12 times and read it for hours and it wouldn’t show up in your open rate. Additionally, if an email is viewed in a preview pane, sometimes that won’t even count as being opened.

Therefore, you want to stop worrying about open rates for everything besides simple comparisons between your emails to see which is performing better given the flaws of the statistic.

Instead you want to pay attention to the click through rate, or CTR. The email click through rate is the percentage of people that clicked on a link. Most email marketing systems will let you break that down to see all of the different link percentages if there was more than one link clicked.

Also, keep in mind that some programs may calculate click through rate as people who clicked / people who opened. Since you know that the open rate is flawed, if this is how your CTR is calculated, than perform your own simple math by taking the raw number of people who clicked / people you sent the email to.

3. Compare, tweak & improve – Participating in email marketing tracking is fine in and of itself, but if you don’t use the process to make improvements in your email campaigns than what’s the point? Change up your tactics to see which methods or calls to action produce better results. You can even segment your list and send different groups different versions of the same email to see which converts better.

If you follow these 3 steps you’ll be successfully email marketing tracking in no time!

1. Automatic Unsubscribe Service – Not only is dealing with every unsubscribe request manually a time consuming chore, but you may end up missing a few requests and landing yourself in big trouble. There’s no sense in worrying about this when the majority of providers have automatic unsubscribe services built in to their list management capabilities.

2. Email List Management – In addition to the above, you should also have further list management options at your disposal. These include the ability to sort and segment your list based on a variety of different factors. You may, for example, want to quickly find all of the people who clicked through to your site from your last email, and send them a specific message. Or you may want to target people within 20 miles of your physical location with a special in-store discount. Whatever you may need to do, you’ll want to have these email list management capabilities at your disposal.

3. Tracking Services – Beginning a new email campaign isn’t going to get you very far if you don’t have any way to track how your emails are performing. You don’t to have this valuable information at hand and easily available so you can determine your various messages are being received, how they are being perceived and if people are ultimately taking the action you want them to be taking.

4. Autoresponder – An autoresponder is a crucial component to your email campaign software. It’s going to allow you to build your list so that you can find new prospects and eventually convert them into returning customers and clients. Any email program that does not offer this is seriously lacking. The only reason you wouldn’t need this is if you don’t have any kind of website or blog presence whatsoever.

5. Additional Features – There are a variety of different features and add-ons you may be interested in having along with basic emailing services. For example, most providers offer a variety of templates based around different themes and message types. Many email service providers also include surveying options, which opens up an entirely new world of possibilities. Consider what else you may be interested in and find a provider that offers it.

These aren’t the only things you need to consider, but finding an email campaign software provider that has these 5 elements will ensure you are investing in a quality service.